Lead Management. Guide

Transcription

1 Lead Management Guide

2 OVERVIEW This document examines the importance of strategy, assets and technology when considering a Lead Management process. The document provides background, points for discovery, and recommendations for actions that organizations can take, when considering Lead Management and Marketing Automation. With an Agency partner as their guide, the organization can implement a system that captures, manages and optimizes the lead management process by providing the right content, at the right time, to the right lead in the buying process. Marketing Automation is the tool for an inbound marketing approach that informs, interacts and nurtures leads to impact revenue as they move through the sale funnel. LEAD MANAGEMENT GUIDE This year has been dubbed the Year of Targeting and Personalization by industry bellwethers. SEO, PPC, CRM, CMS, and social media are all vying for the attention of marketing in an effort to deliver more optimized content. The fact is that targeted and personalized content on the web, via mobile access, and through lead management channels can increase brand awareness and sales qualified leads. A company can have multiple systems to tackle this challenge, but without an effective and unifying strategy, the organization will never fully realize their value. The most effective way to ensure that targeting and personalization is in your toolkit is to have a lead management strategy that leverages Marketing Automation. Marketing Automation is the tool for an inbound marketing approach that informs, interacts and nurtures leads to impact revenue as they move through the sale funnel. If you re ready to augment your marketing and sales efforts with targeted and personalized content, Marketing Automation is in your near future. 2

3 THE MARKETING AUTOMATION GAME PLAN it s as simple as understanding three things. What tools and resources do you have available now. What would you like to have in 90 days? And, how can you get there? Lead Management is a strategy. It involves goals, objectives, personnel, activities and tools. Many organizations have taken the leap to manage leads for the benefit of sales, but have you taken the leap to commit to informing, educating and tracking prospects that aren t ready for the sales handover? How many of these prospects are you leaving behind? How many could you affect if you were able to personalize content to nurture them along in the process? An effective lead management strategy doesn t just focus on the end result: it focuses on the path to get there. In order to implement effective Marketing Automation you need to have a plan and you need to have a commitment. Planning begins with uncovering business, organizational and individual goals within the context of the overall business. Marketing Automation is ultimately driven by the needs of the revenue generating engine of a business or organization. Your Marketing Automation plan serves as the bridge between Marketing and Sales. So gathering, understanding, and ensuring buy-in from both groups is essential for success. It helps to have a method to collect information, ensure communication and report on success when you undertake an endeavor that impacts people, processes and technology. The typical stages in such a method are: Discovery, Definition, Design and then Implementation. Within each of these phases, particular actions occur to meet a specific goal. Depending upon the scope and scale of your project, the timelines for each phase will vary. Begin your Marketing Automation Game plan with a little bit of analysis. Analysis doesn t have to be difficult; it s as simple as understanding three things. What tools and resources do you have available now. What would you like to have in 90 days? And, how can you get there? 3

4 YOU RE RICH The information, assets, and capabilities you have to make your Lead Generation strategy successful that are available to you right now may surprise you. Uncovering this information and making it useful involves a bit of discovery. A simple method for collecting information is questionnaires. Questionnaires allow you to collect data from a wide audience with a small time investment. The most significant benefit of administering questionnaires is the buy-in and sense of ownership that questionnaire respondents feel from being included in the process. Lead Management is a process that will impact many departments of an organization. And since the solution to Lead Management is through technology, buy-in and ownership will be critical during implementation to ensure the project s overall success and continued longterm impact. The discovery phase of your Lead Management process involves several departments. Consider questions for Sales, Marketing, Content/Design, Technology, and your Vendor. Target your questionnaires to fit that audience specifically, and if possible, read through the questions with your audience rather than distribute the questions by . Let s examine a simple approach that you can use to baseline your existing Lead Management process. 4

5 THE AGILE MARKETING AUTOMATION LIFECYCLE 1. Begin the conversation by communicating your mission. 2. Create departmental questionnaires (Project Name) is trying to improve the quality of Lead Management at our organization. We are trying to ensure that we are effectively managing our leads from suspect to prospect, improving the information and messaging that our leads receive, and increasing our overall number or sales qualified leads. The improvements will include a technology solution. This process will serve all revenue generating departments in the organization including marketing and sales. Your responses will help define the plan so please be honest and upfront in your responses. Whatever suggestions you make will be a strong focus of our efforts. Lead Management is a process that impacts many departments at an organization. It begins with Marketing, it is supported by content and technology, and it benefits sales. An effective Lead Management process recognizes that prospect preferences have changed and that their goal is to be engaged, informed and nurtured. Confirm that your Lead Management process recognizes this shift. 5

6 Marketing Department The Marketing Department has always had an active role in content creation, building brand awareness and messaging. Marketing is responsible for audience refinement: from suspects to prospect to nurture. Today s tools such as Web Content Management and Marketing Automation extend the Marketing Department s capabilities in new and exciting directions. Likewise, there are also many content creation and marketing agency options available for organization that don t have internal marketing and content capabilities. Today s tools help provide targeted and personalized content and have an added feature of measurability through metrics and responses. The faith based campaign approach is a thing of the past. Measurability, metrics, and segmentation on actions such as new visitor, visitor frequency, and demo/whitepaper downloads, for example, provide marketing with unique data upon which to act. Discover what the Marketing Department considers an effective Lead Management strategy and you ll uncover key success metrics for effective lead management. Marketing Baseline What makes a lead Sales Qualified? How effective do you feel in the current lead management process? How are your key competitors using technology to support a personalized and targeted marketing process? How satisfied are you with the time it takes the organization to provide customers with product or service information? What does a successful nurturing program contain? What are the entry and exit criteria for prospects as they move through the various nurture campaigns. Are you ready to test your entry/exit criteria and tune your campaigns and criteria regularly? How can a Marketing Automation system help you educate, inspire and nurture leads? As contacts move through the journey, they ll require unique nurturing and education. Ensure that processes and resources are in place to accomplish these actions. What lead/suspect information is currently captured? Where is it captured? What information would be more beneficial in the future? 6

7 Sales Department You are on a whale hunt here. Whales are questions that help you uncover bigger picture items. Understanding the current definition of a sales qualified lead provides a strong foundation for your process efforts. A sales qualified lead may mean entirely different conditions to sales and to marketing. Your goal is to uncover their expectation. Sales Baseline What is a sales qualified lead? How does a buyer progress from suspect to sales qualified lead? When you receive a sales qualified lead, tell me what information you receive, where it comes from, and what you do with it. What systems are involved? What lead information is tracked? What prospect information would be most helpful to track? How satisfied are you with the quality of the client leads you receive? How satisfied are you with our organization s ability to nurture our prospect and customers specific needs and requirements? How quickly are you able to receive the information necessary to contact a prospect? 7

8 Design/Content Department Content creation involves everyone. The reason it involves everyone is because there is a huge benefit to multiple perspectives, opinions and approaches. Collaboration and communication amongst your staff can help you create content, and topics for content, that are unique and engaging for your audience. Certainly not everyone can and should write content. But, you ll uncover amazing ideas and topics simply by discussing the goal of creating content for your audience. Areas of Focus for the content department include: Design Baseline Today s buyer s want to self-educate. Are your content pieces up to the task? What multimedia capabilities are available and what are expected? How quickly can you be prepared for these content needs? Is there a process and repository for content? Will you need to engage an agency to help extend your current content? Is it possible to create a schedule and calendar for content creation. 8

9 DESIGN YOUR PROCESS AND SOLUTION 1. Begin the conversation by communicating your mission. By reviewing the responses you receive from the varied departments you will have accomplished several major objectives; you ll have created a baseline, from which you can measure future success; you ll have secured buy-in from the participants; and, you will have a solid understanding of your next steps. Begin to communicate and evangelize your goal Implementing a Marketing Automation solution will improve the quality of Lead Management by effectively managing leads from suspect to prospect; improving the information and messaging that leads receive; and increasing the overall number or sales qualified leads. Implementing a Marketing Automation solution will improve the quality of Lead Management by effectively managing leads from suspect to prospect; improving the information and messaging that leads receive; and increasing the overall number or sales qualified leads. Your next step is to choose a Marketing Automation solution to fit your needs and objectives. 9

10 YOU RE SELECTIVE When considering a technology that s going to support your revenue generating efforts, it s important to make an informed decision. You need to consider your organizational readiness and resources. You need to consider your existing processes and resources. And you need to investigate the tools and techniques that exist within the space and then develop a supportable business case. Multiple sources of information exist on the case for Demand Generation and Marketing Automation. Tools to support the effort run the gamut of simple collection tools to fully-integrated enterprise solutions. Determining which approach is best for your team and organization is called source selection. Source selection is the process by which tools, commercial off-the-shelf products, and agency/vendors are vetted for the options and service they can provide. Now that you have an idea of your requirements, you need to find a vendor that can be a partner in your Marketing Automation success. Your high-level activities are as follows: Overall Efficiency 1. Create evaluation criteria 2. Research candidate products 3. Develop product shortlist 4. Evaluate product options 5. Create a prototype campaign to be tested it in the system (assets, actions, handovers) 6. Determine the creative, content, implementation and support capabilities of the agency/vendor 7. Determine recommendations 8. Present finding to management 9. Product approval 10. Contract negotiation At a minimum, you want an agency or vendor that has a history of content creation, both written and graphical, that meets your branding, personalization and targeting goals. You also want a partner that can ensure that your Lead Management strategy will supported by the implementation of a process that s repeatable, optimizable, and measurable. And finally, you want an agency partner that understands the unique benefits of Marketing Automation in a Lead Management strategy because it s an implementation that impacts revenue, operations, organizational communications and client communications. 10

11 YOU RE READY Determining when a client is ready for Demand Generation involves two significant discoveries. First and foremost, a client must have change readiness in their DNA. And second, the client must have a risk-tolerance (or reward tolerance) that is high enough to support this endeavor. The client must also view the agency as a partner in their success -- a partner that is mission ready to implement the right solution for each client to promote an impact through sustainable services whether technical, resource, content or support. INFORMED DECISIONS Selecting a Marketing Automation tool is an important step in the Lead Management process. With appropriate discovery and definition you will be able to design and then implement a solution that supports your revenue generating efforts with ease of use, personalization, metrics and reporting. Having an agency and vendor partner that understands your goals and has a successful history in implementing Marketing Automation tools will put you on the fast track of leveraging your creative with analytics to impact revenue. 11

12 NET-RESULTS We believe Marketing Automation should be simple to obtain, easy to manage and have a significant impact on revenue. We believe in the philosophy of Marketing Automation, not just the technology. We believe in the synergy of marketing and sales. And we believe that leads are lifeblood, not just data. Our Marketing Automation tool is built to serve our clients and agency partners first, last and always by providing easy-to-use tools, outstanding marketing support, best practices and the industry s only white label Marketing Automation product. Marketing Automation 12